


Stormdancer

by ariel2me



Series: Baratheon Brothers [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-08-30 16:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8539873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: Stannis, Renly and an imaginary dragon called Stormdancer.





	1. Chapter 1

“Look at meeeeeee. I’m a draaaaaaagon.” Renly extends his arms, flapping them vigorously as if they were truly wings.

Stannis frowns. He has no time for this playacting, for this childish indulgence. Not now. _Especially_ not now.

Renly’s hand is tugging Stannis’ sleeve, insistently. “Staaaaaaaannis.”

“What?”

“I’m a dragon, see? A glorious, glorious dragon.”

“No, you’re not. You’re Renly Baratheon, and you must eat your supper as you’re told.”

 “I don’t want to eat that. Nasty! It’s nasty and it smells bad.”

“It is meat. You like meat.” Rat meat, cooked and charred black beyond recognition, true, but still rat meat for all that. There is nothing else. What else is he to do? What else is he to feed his brother and the other mouths in the castle with? He could not conjure food out of thin air.

  _Lord Steffon and Lord Robert would have been able to feed us._ He feels the accusing glares everywhere in Storm’s End; in the great hall, in the courtyard, in the corridors, even here in his younger brother’s bedchamber.

 _You are imagining things, my lord_ , Maester Cressen would insist. Imagining things. But what imagination? Everyone always insists he has none.  

He pushes the plate closer towards Renly. “Eat,” he orders.

Renly is still resisting, pushing the plate away with a strength surprising in a boy his age. “It’s no meat _I’ve_ ever eaten before. And anyway, I’m a dragon. Dragons don’t eat burnt meat. We eat them raw, raw and fresh and bloody,” Renly says, flashing his fingers in front of Stannis’ eyes with flourish. For a moment, it almost seems like Renly’s fingers are truly bloody, stained with the blood of fresh kill. Stannis shakes his head, to clear his vision, to allow nausea to recede.

  _It must be the hunger. I am seeing things._ He almost laughs, a bitter, mirthless laugh. Imagine that. Imagine if starving to death finally gives him an imagination after all.

“Sheep. I want sheep, and lots of it,” Renly gleefully continues his tale.

“Enough! You’re not a dragon. You’re a silly boy playing a silly game. A real dragon would fly over these walls to drive away the Tyrell men besieging the castle before we all die of hunger. A real dragon would fly across Shipbreaker Bay to break up the Redwyne fleet surrounding us before everything in this castle is reduced to bones, blood and ashes. Can you do that? Can you do _any_ of that?”

Renly is close to tears, hugging his knees, rocking back and forth on his bed. “I was just playing. It is only a game,” he murmurs, voice barely audible. “You’re so _mean_ , Stannis.”

Then the sobbing comes. Loud, wailing cries will be next, Stannis knows from experience. And then Renly’s nursemaid will be hurrying into the room, strenuously avoiding Stannis’ gaze, saying nothing, asking nothing, her determined silence a harsher rebuke than any word could ever have been.

_A real dragon would fly over these walls to drive away the Tyrell men besieging the castle before we all die of hunger. A real dragon would fly across Shipbreaker Bay to break up the Redwyne fleet surrounding us before everything in this castle is reduced to bones, blood and ashes._

He has gone too far. Even _he_ knows this. He does not need Renly’s nursemaid or even Maester Cressen to tell him this.

He sits on the edge of Renly’s bed. The boy has his head down, staring at the sheet as if the white contains a multitude of bright colors. Clearing his throat, Stannis begins, awkwardly, “Father said he dreamed of riding a dragon, when he was a boy.”

Renly slowly raises his head. “Did he?”

“He even named his imaginary dragon. Stormdancer, he called it. His grandsire the king asked if he would not prefer to call his dragon Stagdancer.”

A hint of a smile threatens to break on Renly’s face. “Because of the stag in our banner?”

Stannis nods. “Father replied that his other grandsire was known as The Laughing Storm after all, not The Laughing Stag.”

Renly laughs. “Stagdancer. The Laughing Stag. Those are really, really silly names. I like Stormdancer much, much better. Is it a boy dragon, or a girl dragon?”

“What?”

“Is Stormdancer a boy dragon, or a girl dragon?

“I don’t think Father ever said.” Or if he did, Stannis had forgotten. You think you will remember everything, but you don’t. You _vow_ that you will remember everything, but you still forget. And then there are the things you never even knew, the secrets never uncovered. The dead live on in the memory of the ones they leave behind, but not _all_ of them, not them in their entirety, only a small part, a _very_ small part, miniscule compared to the whole. An ever-shrinking part, as more and more years passed.

“It’s a boy dragon,” Renly decides. “It’s a boy dragon who loves a girl dragon called Turtledove. They marry, and they have three baby dragons. The youngest baby dragon is the cutest and the most precious and –“

“I’m sure he is,” Stannis says dryly.

Renly is not discouraged. “Don’t you want to know what the baby dragons are called?”

“What are they called?”

 _“You_ should name them, Stannis.”

“I don’t want to name them.” Then, rethinking the matter, he says, “If you eat your supper, then I will name the baby dragons.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

After supper is eaten and the baby dragons are duly named, Renly turns to his brother to say, “I wish Father really did have a dragon. He has the blood of the dragon in him. Maester Cressen said so.”

 _And once I wished that Father and Mother had gone to Volantis on the back of a dragon_ , Stannis thinks, but does not say. A storm could not have sunk a dragon so easily.

Instead, he tells Renly, “We must not think of ourselves as dragons. We are Baratheons, not Targaryens.” Despite their Targaryen blood. Despite Rhaelle Targaryen’s blood giving Robert his claim to the throne.

“But stags are not fierce like dragons,” Renly protests. “A stag can’t come and rescue us.”

If there is any stag left within the walls of the castle, it could lengthen the number of days they would survive the siege. A dead stag could save them. For a while, at least.

“Maybe a dragon really will come and rescue us after all,” Renly continues.

“Renly –“

“I know. There is no dragon, not really. But maybe a man who is like a dragon will come and rescue us.”

Many years ago, the first time they were taken to court by their lord father, Stannis and Robert mistook Tywin Lannister for the king. For a dragon. They both agreed that he looked as impressive as the dragons were fearsome. But that one will never stir from Casterly Rock. Why would he, after all? They are no one to him, the sons of Steffon Baratheon. The close companion of his childhood is many years dead, and that friendship had not survived their years of manhood in any case.

 _We grew apart_ , Father said, _but no one is to blame for the growing apart. Only time, only distance, only circumstances. Only life._

The king calling for Robert’s head had also been an inseparable childhood companion of their father, and a cousin besides. These things do not count for much, if at all.

 _We will save ourselves._ He could hold on, hold the line. He must, after all. That is his duty. He had sworn an oath to Robert. But for how long will he be able to hold the line? And how many will still be alive at the end of it? This boy, this boy chattering on and on about the savior who would come from the sky to rescue them; will _he_ live? Stannis could not bear to think otherwise. He flees his brother’s room without saying another word.

When the smuggler comes with his onion and his salt fish, Renly dances and shouts, “The dragon! The dragon has finally come to save us.”

“I am not a dragon, m’lord, merely a man of trade.”

“You’re a dragon,” Renly insists. “Your name is Seadancer, because you came from the sea to rescue us. I thought you’d come from the sky, but the sea is just as good.”

“But why _dancer_ , m’lord? Why not Searunner, or Seawalker?” the smuggler asks, eliciting a grin from Renly.

He is good with the boy. Perhaps he has a son that age. A son who will grow to inherit his _trade_ , as he calls it. A son who will grow to be a lawbreaker, just like him.

_This lawbreaker is bringing us food. Desperately needed food._

_He is still a lawbreaker._

Savior and lawbreaker, he is both.

“My father had a dragon called Stormdancer,” Renly continues his chatter.

The smuggler’s eyes – _he has a name, Stannis_ , his mother’s voice, he hears it still, though the timbre is wrong, not as rich, not as melodious as hers had truly been - _Davos’_ eyes glance towards Stannis. “A dragon, m’lord?”

“Not a real dragon, of course,” Stannis replies.

Only one in his imagination.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These two drabbles are the prequels to the Stannis-Renly fic you read in Chapter 1 : )

_Egg lowered his voice. “Someday the dragons will return. My brother Daeron’s dreamed of it, and King Aerys read it in a prophecy. Maybe it will be my egg that hatches. That would be splendid.”_

_“Would it?” Dunk had his doubts._

_Not Egg. “Aemon and I used to pretend that our eggs would be the ones to hatch. If they did, we could fly through the sky on dragonback, like the first Aegon and his sisters.”_

_(The Mystery Knight)_

* * *

 

**Aegon** **V Targaryen & Steffon Baratheon**

_Kill the boy and let the man be born_ , his brother Aemon had told him. Is it the price of being a man, to be disillusioned, to lose hope and faith in most things?

_It is futile. Aegon the Dragonsbane tried and failed. It will not work._

It  _has_  to work. There _must_  be a way. He is determined to find a way. For the good of the realm. For his people, for they  _are_  his people, his duty and his responsibility, all of them, especially the most defenseless and powerless of them.

_It takes a man to rule. An Aegon, not an Egg._

He is an old man now, a grandfather three times over, and yet there are days when he wakes feeling like that boy still, wounded and astonished by the cruelties and vagaries of the world.

An Aegon would not sit still doing nothing while his plans for a better realm is thwarted and destroyed. An Aegon would not give in and surrender while his people are mistreated, wronged and neglected. An Aegon would find a way.

He reads and rereads the account of Aegon III’s failed attempt to bring back the dragons.  _Where did you go wrong? What did you miss?_ He does not notice his grandson coming in to light the candles. The sun is setting. He had been reading for hours.

In his royal page raiment, Steffon looks a fine figure of a boy. He is full of ready smile and eager chatter in the presence of his grandfather, though Betha tells her husband that the boy still cries out for his mother and father in his sleep on some nights.

Glancing at the illustration of the last dragon to perish, Steffon asks, “What name did you want to give your dragon, if your egg had hatched, Grandfather?”

Aegon smiles. “We had so many names we thought of, my brother Aemon and I. I have forgotten most of them. It has been so long since I was a boy.”

_Where did the years go, Aemon? I wish you are here with me now, brother._

Letters are not the same, not a substitute for actual presence. He suppresses a sigh, puts the smile back on his face before asking the youngest of his grandchildren, “What name would  _you_  give your dragon, Steffon?”

Steffon looks doubtful. “But I’m not a Targaryen, I’m a Baratheon. How can I ride a dragon?”

“You are still my grandchild, just like Aerys and Rhaella. You have your mother’s blood in you, Targaryen blood.”

Steffon considers the question. Finally, with a bright smile, he says, “I like the name of Princess Baela’s dragon best of all.”

“Moondancer?”

Steffon nods. “But since I’m a Baratheon as well as a Targaryen, if I had a dragon, I would name him Stormdancer.”

“Not Stagdancer?” Aegon teases.

Steffon laughs. “No, not Stagdancer. After all, Grandfather Lyonel was known as the Laughing Storm, not the Laughing Stag.”

“And can Stormdancer ride through a fierce storm?”

“The fiercest!” Steffon replies excitedly, lost in the world of imagination. “We’ll come and rescue you from the storm, Grandfather, and bring you back safely to the Red Keep. Or to Summerhall, if you prefer.”

 

* * *

 

 

**Steffon** **Baratheon & Stannis Baratheon**

“What happened to Proudwing?”

“I gave her away,” Stannis replied. “She is not for hawking, Great-Uncle Harbert said. I must try another bird, because I was making a fool of myself.”

Steffon sighed. “My uncle and his sharp tongue. I will speak to him.”

Stannis shook his head, looking thoroughly miserable. “No, Father. He was only telling me the truth. And it was such a foolish, childish dream to think that Proudwing could ever fly again.”

His son sounded like a weary and jaded old man, not a boy of two-and-ten. “I’m sure  _you_ were never that foolish or childish, Father, when you were my age,” Stannis added.

Steffon laughed. “I doubt it. I was much, much worse. And according to my father, my uncle was even more of a handful in his younger days.”

Stannis looked unconvinced, keeping his head down, not meeting his father’s gaze.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I dreamt of riding a dragon? I even gave him a name, my dragon.”

Interest piqued, Stannis finally raised his head to ask, “What was his name?”

“Stormdancer.”

“Did you dream that you rode him into battle, to protect the Stormlands?”

“No, I dreamt that I rode him through a fierce storm, to rescue my grandfather.”

_We’ll come and rescue you from the storm, Grandfather, and bring you back safely to the Red Keep. Or to Summerhall, if you prefer._

There had been no dragon at Summerhall, despite his grandfather’s best, or possibly worst, effort. What had been merely a boy’s passing fancy for Steffon had been an obsession for his grandfather. An obsession to find the means to fulfill his dream. An honorable dream. A dream for a better realm. A dream that ended in -

_You have your mother’s blood in you, Steffon. Targaryen blood._

There had been no dragon at Summerhall, but of blood there was plenty.

“Father?” Stannis sneaked a glance at his father, saw the grave look on his face, and fell silent. Father and son sat side-by-side, wordlessly, watching the flames crackling in the fireplace.

Steffon saw burning and burned bodies leaping in the dancing flames, closed his eyes tightly, and as he had done so countless times since the tragedy at Summerhall, pretended that he had seen nothing at all.

 _We will never speak of it_ , his mother had sworn, and Steffon had sworn alongside her.

 _We will never think of it_ , his mother had vowed, and Steffon had vowed alongside her.

 _We will forget_ , his mother had promised, but Steffon knew even  _she_  had not managed to keep that promise, for her last words on her deathbed years later had been about  _‘my father and those accursed dragons.’_

He had never even told his beloved wife what truly happened that day. Cassana knew everything there was to know about the day his father died, but she knew nothing about what actually transpired when Summerhall was destroyed.

“It would be so grand to see a dragon come to life, and to ride such a magnificent creature,” Stannis said, with a dreamy, faraway look on his face.

Steffon already regretted bringing up the dragon story. Nothing good ever came of dreaming of dragons.

 _Why?_  His son would ask.

_We will never speak of it._

_You must never speak of it. Not to anyone, not even your wife and children. Promise me on your father’s bones, Steffon. And mine, for I will be joining him soon._


End file.
